Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen Wire: New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has launched a competition to design “micro-units” to help solve the shortage of of small apartments in Manhattan.

The adAPT NYC competition seeks designs for a pilot project to be built on a site the city owns in Kips Bay, where zoning regulations will be waived to allow the entire building to be made up of studio and one-bedroom apartments.

“People from all over the world want to live in New York City, and we must develop a new, scalable housing model that is safe, affordable and innovative to meet their needs,” Bloomberg said.

Here’s the full press release from Bloomberg’s office, which can also be found on Bloomberg’s website:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert K. Steel and Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Mathew M. Wambua today launched the adAPT NYC Competition, a pilot program to develop a new housing model for the City’s growing small-household population. adAPT NYC seeks to create additional choices within New York City’s housing market to accommodate the city’s changing demographics.

Currently New York City has 1.8 million one- and two-person households, but only one million studios and one-bedrooms. The design competition involves a Request for Proposals for a rental building composed primarily, or completely, of micro-units – apartments smaller than what is allowed under current regulations. New York City’s housing codes have not kept up with its changing population, and currently do not allow an entire building of micro-units. Under this pilot program, Mayor Bloomberg will waive certain zoning regulations at a City-owned site at 335 East 27th Street in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan to test the market for this new housing model.

The Mayor made the announcement at the American Institute of Architects’ Center for Architecture and also was joined by Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Linda I. Gibbs, City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden and Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri, whose agencies collaborated with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development on the creation of this design competition.

“Developing housing that matches how New Yorkers live today is critical to the City’s continued growth, future competitiveness and long-term economic success,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “People from all over the world want to live in New York City, and we must develop a new, scalable housing model that is safe, affordable and innovative to meet their needs.”

“Under Mayor Bloomberg’s leadership, New York City continues to be a magnet for talent from around the world and around the five boroughs, and with this new model for development of affordable housing, we will help ensure that New Yorkers have more options that meet their housing needs,” said Deputy Mayor Steel. “This innovative public-private partnership will build on the Bloomberg Administration’s track record of leveraging private-sector expertise and resources to develop quality affordable housing.”

“Research has shown that stable, affordable housing can have a positive impact on health and well-being,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Linda I. Gibbs. “From young graduates just starting out to older adults seeking to downsize, adAPT NYC will allow us to better meet the changing housing needs of New Yorkers by piloting apartments that are affordable, efficient, and in tune with New York lifestyles.”

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) will issue an RFP for the design, construction, and operation of a micro-unit rental building on a transit-oriented, City-owned site located at 335 East 27th Street in the Kips Bay neighborhood of Manhattan. At least 75 percent of the units in the building will be micro-units, which are expected to measure approximately 275 to 300 square feet. These efficient, self-contained units will include kitchens and bathrooms. The RFP design guidelines encourage the development of a mixed-use building with apartments that have substantial access to light and air to create a sense of openness. Responses will be judged on affordability and competitive land purchase price; innovative micro-unit layout and building design; and experience developing housing in New York City. Other high-cost, high-density cities also are testing the concept of micro-units to provide smaller and less expensive housing options.

“adAPT NYC is a fantastic opportunity to create a model of housing that could be replicated in other locations and contexts to expand New York City’s housing stock,” said HPD Commissioner Wambua. “We’re looking for creativity, affordability, imaginative design and responsiveness to the needs of real New Yorkers. Show us something we haven’t seen before that is ingenious, sustainable, replicable and practical, and we will work with you to make it a reality.”

“As with the Inclusionary Housing Program, adAPT NYC is another example of a successful partnership between HPD and City Planning where zoning innovation is used to broaden housing choices for New Yorkers,” said Planning Commissioner Burden. “With adAPT, we are using design layouts to define a new apartment model and ensure that the city’s housing meets the diverse needs of its residents.”

“As New York City continues to grow and evolve, our housing stock must do the same,” said Buildings Commissioner LiMandri. “This design competition is a unique opportunity to re-define the way New Yorkers live by creating a new type of housing model that is safe, efficient and affordable. The challenge will be to follow our strict safety standards while providing an innovative design that meets the public’s needs.”

“New Yorkers can be better served by adapting the city’s apartment models to allow more efficient and sustainable homes,” said Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability Director David Bragdon. “Today’s announcement is fulfillment of the pledge in PlaNYC, the Mayor’s long-term sustainability strategy, to update the City’s regulations to better accommodate the population and demographics of the future.”

“The American Institute of Architects New York Chapter is pleased to support the adAPT initiative through which New York City’s housing supply will more nimbly provide space for the growing number of young and creative individuals looking to move to our city or remain here,” said Rick Bell, Executive Director of the American Institute of Architects New York. “Decent apartments of small size can be provided in all five boroughs that meet the demand of a growing population for whom location, value and design matter.”

“With this important housing pilot, New York once again leads world cities in devising creative solutions to the challenge of accommodating growth in an environmentally sustainable way,” said Kathryn Wylde, President & CEO, the Partnership for New York City.

“This program will usher in important innovations in our zoning resolution to address the city’s perennial shortage of housing for a broad segment of our population,” said Steve Spinola, President of REBNY. “This creative approach will be one of the more enduring aspects of the Mayor’s housing legacy.”

“Once again the Bloomberg Administration tackles age-old issues with fresh thinking and a willingness to experiment with new ideas,” said Jerilyn Perine, Executive Director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council. “This pilot project will not only create new types of much needed housing; but will also set the stage for much need regulatory relief to make room for more housing choices for our growing population.”

Today there are several regulatory barriers to building smaller housing units. The City will waive zoning regulations for this pilot project to permit the development of a single building predominately composed of micro-units. Responses to the RFP will demonstrate whether the micro-unit model is viable and can provide a suitable housing alternative. The pilot will help inform potential regulatory changes that could allow the as-of-right development of micro-units in appropriate locations. The City will not waive Building Code requirements for this pilot, but an optional section of the RFP will ask developers to suggest changes to the codes that would facilitate future development of this type of housing.

The adAPT NYC initiative is as part of Mayor Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan, a multi-billion dollar initiative to finance the creation or preservation of 165,000 units of affordable housing by the close of Fiscal Year 2014. In this initial design competition, there is no City subsidy. HPD will require that, like all newly-constructed or substantially-renovated buildings built under the New Housing Marketplace Plan, proposals achieve certification through the Enterprise Green Communities Program, a comprehensive green building framework that provides cost-effective standards for creating healthy and energy efficient homes.

HPD will hold a pre-submission conference for potential design teams on July 31, 2012 at the American Institute of Architects’ Center for Architecture. The deadline for proposal submissions is September 14, 2012.

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to solve housing shortage appeared first on Dezeen.

Voici une utilisation originale avec le disposition de cet escalier minimaliste. Il a été conçu dans le mur de cet appartement à Paris entièrement rénové par Ecole, un studio d’architecture et de design. Les photographies sont réalisés par le graphiste Xavier Lucas. Le projet est à découvrir dans la suite de l’article.

This concrete house in Portugal by architect Paula Santos features an indoor swimming pool and a painter’s studio (+ slideshow).

Most rooms in the house are at ground floor level on either side of a long corridor and only an ensuite bedroom is located upstairs.

The roof pitches upwards in three places to accommodate this first floor and to give high ceilings to the studio and pool room.

Paved terraces and a grass lawn surround the house and a concrete canopy provides an outdoor shelter with circular skylights.

Photographer Nelson Garrido sent us these new images of the house, although it was first completed in 2008.

More concrete houses in Portugal worth a look include one with a large hole in its wall and one with a concrete upper storey and glass walls below.

See more projects in Portugal »

Here’s some extra text sent by the photographer:

House in Ovar

The house at Ovar, Portugal, is an exercise where we stretched to the limit a number of ideas and concepts for a long time already contained in other projects, which had never been put in place. It is also – and above all – a project, which allows for thinking with other people about their own way of inhabiting a dwelling.

The large-scale project, covering 680m2, to be located on not very stable sandy soil allowed us to ponder the house as an object which develops in a continuum.

The need to design the main programme of the house as a ground floor meant that the difference between spaces was implemented by means of variable heights in geometric forms: in respect of their importance and meaning, the most expressive areas such as the swimming pool and the painter’s studio or the body of the entrance from the street acquire more expressive and more elevated forms.

The idea for the object in concrete, a traditionally sculptable material, appears implicit in this concept, designing the elevations with level and sloping surfaces up to the coverage.

The length of the corridor is used to distribute the desired functions and large areas, further creating clipping plan, which allow for a relation with landscape, with the various wooded areas to be constructed suggesting outdoor leisure.

Client: Laura Malaquias, Carlos Mendonça
Architecture: Paula Santos
Collaboration Joana Machado, Nuno Silva, Vasco Novais, Ana Renata Pinho

Foundations and structures: AFA Consult, Carlos Quinaz
Electrical installations, safety, communications: AFA Consult, Raul Serafim

Mechanical equipment, heating, gas: AFA Consult, Carlos Almeida
Hydraulic AFA Consult: Susana Miranda

Landscape architecture: Victor Beiramar Diniz
Construction: Construtora do Loureiro, Lda

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by Paula Santos appeared first on Dezeen.

Focus sur le travail du photographe français Aurélien Villette, qui propose des clichés magnifiques d’exploration autour de l’architecture oubliée sous le nom de l’artiste Adonis. Visuellement impressionnantes, les photographies de ce dernier provenant de plusieurs séries se dévoilent dans la suite de l’article.

More concrete from Tokyo: the headquarters of clothing company Neighborhood has a bare concrete and steel interior that reflects the heavy-duty aesthetic of the brand.

Designed by Japanese architects General Design, the warehouse-like building contains staff offices on its ground, mezzanine and first floors, and presentation areas and a car park occupy the two basement levels.

A double-height workspace is central to the design and is naturally lit from above by a row of clerestory windows.

Cement panels line the walls in this room, while plywood partitions separate spaces in the lower basement.

“We hope that this building will eventually be nicely worn out ” explain the architects, “like a piece of good vintage clothing that you’ve cherished for a long time.”

The building are located in the Shibuya district, close to the two main branches of the store.

We’ve featured a couple of other concrete buildings by General Design on Dezeen, including a shop with no windows.

See all our stories about concrete »

Photography is by Daici Ano.

There’s more text below from General Design:

NH Office Building
Shibuya, Tokyo

This is a head office building of a Tokyo-based apparel brand “Neighborhood” which offers basic clothing influenced by various subcultures associated with motorcycles, military, outdoor etc., located in Shibuya district in Tokyo.

The building consists of workspaces on the first and the second floors, garage and presentation room on the basement floors.

Since the company has a relatively small number of employees, it was not top priority to maximize office space.

Instead of typical office building plan, using entire floor area for office space with vertical circulation located in the back, we decided to allow more space for interconnectivity between workspaces on all floors, to enhance creative and productive work environment.

Long skylight is provided along the central axis, creating a sort of long and thin light well along the central axis.

All workspaces are located at different levels on both sides of the light well, and they are connected with gently inclined stairs running along the central axis.

The light well helps them to keep comfortable distance between all workspaces, while creating a sense of togetherness at the same time.

We intended to create rather bare and unembellished space like a warehouse. Finish materials are rough exposed concrete, fiber reinforced cement board, black painted steel and larch plywood.

We selected ordinary and rough materials used in industrial environment, in order to minimize the sense of “newness” and emphasized strong presence of each element.

We hope that this building will eventually be nicely worn out and be even more attractive as time goes by, like a piece of good vintage clothing that you’ve cherished for a long time. Our ambition is to propose future vintage architecture.

NH office building.
Architect: Shin Ohori / General Design

Location: shibuya Tokyo
Structural system: reinforced concrete

Site area: 402.17m2
Built area: 236.98m2
Total floor area: 992.31m2

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by General Design appeared first on Dezeen.